What Do X-Ray Technicians Do?

An X-Ray Technician is now called a Radiologic Technologist due to the fact that they no longer just create x-ray images. Today's radiographers are far more versatile in the medical community and they create medical images that help health care providers diagnose and treat illness or injury using a plethora of tools. These tools can include X-rays, ultrasound, CT scans, MRIs and a few others. The term radiologic technologist includes different modalities within this health profession. There are more specific titles when describing specifically what someone does. It's sort of like the term nurse in that there are many types of nurses with specific areas of expertise. They do have one thing in common with nurses; they can wear nurse's scrubs to work.

The term technologist can be a little misleading also and should not be confused with technician. A technician fixes machines; a technologist uses the machine to perform their duties. The duties of a Radiologic Technologist include a variety of specialties. Diagnostic Radiography is used to look through the tissue to examine bones, cavities and foreign objects. Sonography uses high frequency ultrasound to see inside the body and is economical, safe and versatile. The technologist that uses this equipment is often a specially trained Sonographer. Fluoroscopy is live motion X-ray and is mostly used to image the digestive tract. With constant radiation a technologist can monitor the administering of a contrasting agent to highlight the organs. This can also be used to position devices within the body. ACT or computed tomography provides a cross-sectional view of the body. It can put the images together to provide 2-D or 3-D images also. An MRI or magnetic resonance imaging, builds a 2-D or 3-D map of different tissue types within the body. Nuclear medicine uses radioactive tracers to examine how the body and organs function. This is often used in the kidneys and heart. Radioisotopes are now being used to treat certain cancers such as thyroid and prostate cancer. Radiation therapy uses radiation to eradicate or shrink cancerous cells and growths in and on the surface of the body. The last technology we'll list is mammography's, which uses X-ray to look at the breast tissues.

As you probably are aware, since most of these technologists work in a medical facility, they wear a medical uniform, quite often nursing scrubs. They normally cannot be differentiated by anything these days. In the past they were the ones with the heavy lead apron on during an X-ray treatment.